


Shaken Still

by echoinautumn (maybetwice)



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Comfort, Cuddling and Snuggling, F/M, Fluff, M/M, Mpreg, Multi, Threesome - F/M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-02
Updated: 2012-01-02
Packaged: 2017-10-28 18:28:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,833
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/310846
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maybetwice/pseuds/echoinautumn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Julian makes a different choice on the runabout in "Body Parts", Keiko and Miles do their best to make him feel like he belongs.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shaken Still

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Naatz](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Naatz/gifts).



> Written for [a prompt](http://ds9-rewatch.livejournal.com/79969.html?thread=478561#t478561) at DS9_rewatch on LJ, and my own long-standing desire to see Bashir carrying the O'Briens' baby from the moment I saw "Body Parts". Shameless feel-good, fluffy fic, with an angst option possible in the future, if I haven't reached the point of saturation for mpreg in this fandom by writing this.

“They tell you that you might encounter things like this when you’re in the Academy,” Julian sighed miserably, shifting his narrow hips around and groaning when he sat back in the couch and found himself more uncomfortable than ever. To add insult to injury (or perhaps only injury to injury), the baby kicked him fiercely under his ribs.

“They even say that it can happen to you if you touch a—a—oh, anything,” he finished and swore softly, pushing down on his ribs with another dissatisfied grunt. “An artifact, maybe the wrong kind of plant, and then there you are, carrying some kind of utterly unnatural creature in your abdominal cavity.”

“That’s my son,” Miles interrupted by cleared his throat sharply and lowering his datapadd onto his thigh. “Watch what you’re calling an unnatural creature.”

“Yes, of course.” Julian waved a placating hand toward him and lifting his hips from the couch again, one hand on his ridiculously protruding abdomen. “As I was saying, you _know_ these things happen, but you never quite expect it to happen, and certainly not to yourself.”

“The Major was willing, too.” Miles set down his whiskey and moved the datapadd onto the table next to it. “You could have transferred him to her instead.”

Julian made a face and gave up trying to adjust his position, but Miles leaned over, lifted him again, and shoved a pillow behind him.

“Oh,” he said and sank back onto it with palpable relief. “That’s much better.”

“I learnt a few things from Keiko’s first pregnancy.” Miles sat down again and pulled Julian’s feet up over his legs.

“Maybe I should transfer the baby to you instead.” Julian pulled his feet off of Miles’s lap and back toward himself, and then gave him a pointed, unhappy look over his bent knees. “Anyway, as I was going to say about the Major, I couldn’t have known what would happen if the baby was transferred to a Bajoran woman. There are at least a few cases I’ve read of successful pregnancies in male Humans, even Betazoids, Vulcans and at least one Andorian! I studied them when I was doing my pediatric work—I was quite good at that, too!”

Miles looked at him over the top of the datapadd he had picked up and begun reading again. “So you ran off to do _frontier medicine_ when you could have been renowned across the quadrant for your skill with making children laugh before you take their temperature?”

Julian blushed and was pensive for a moment. After a long silence, he recovered himself and continued in a mindless way that he hoped sounded more like stream-of-consciousness nattering rather than a poor attempt to reassure himself. “Well, to be fair, it was a gamble either way, and I chose the option that seemed less risky for Keiko and your child. His genetic structure is secure, you and Keiko are assuredly his genetic parents, so it isn’t as if my genetic material is going to affect him.”

The door to the O’Briens’ quarters opened and Keiko walked in with Molly in her arms just in time to hear the latter half of Julian’s remark.

“Well, thank God,” Miles said flatly, lowering the datapadd again so Julian could clearly see his expression before he rose up to his feet again to kiss Keiko and take Molly from her. “Here I was worried he was going to come out as flighty as you are.”

“Don’t be mean, Miles,” Keiko scolded gently and smoothed Molly’s hair back from her face. “It wouldn’t be all bad if he took a little after Julian, too, would it? He’s intelligent, well-tempered and quite handsome. Hello there, Julian.”

Neither Miles nor Julian looked particularly comfortable with her previous statement, but Julian smiled thinly and waved to Keiko from the couch while she bent over to check him over.

“I think it _would_ be all bad,” Miles muttered to Molly, who giggled back at him, covering her mouth with her hands to hide it.

“Fortunately, that is neither here nor there, as it is entirely improbable,” Julian added, a little louder than was perhaps strictly necessary. He then lowered his voice and gently prevented Keiko from lifting his uniform shirt to examine his rounded belly. “Keiko, I’m really very well, I’ve had a look at everything today myself, and Bandee confirmed all the tests herself. You can even ask her!”

Keiko looked briefly embarrassed, and she did pull her hands away from him. “I know you’re very capable, Julian,” she assured him quickly. “It’s just that...”

“It’s just that it’s our baby,” Miles explained for her, setting Molly down so she could run away to her bedroom, where Julian had spent the better part of his day off making some improvements to the hologram projector she played with. When Julian looked very surprised at the idea, it had apparently not even occurred to him, Miles clarified for him, “He doesn’t mind, Keiko.”

“No, of course not,” Julian added and held out his hand for hers again. “I just thought...”

“You just thought I was criticizing your medical care,” Keiko smiled and removed her hands willingly so she could gently lift his back from the pillows he was resting on. When Keiko replaced them with herself, Julian made a quiet noise to protest, but found that resting his head on her lap was eminently more comfortable.

“I suppose that was it,” he sighed, holding out his hands to take the pillow back from her and shove it under his back again. “I’ll try not to make the mistake again.”

When Miles lifted his feet again and retook his place on the couch, Julian hardly noticed, and he certainly didn’t pull his feet away again.

The O’Briens were good people, and they were trying very hard to make things more comfortable for him in every sense. Miles had made some fuss about the baby’s transfer when it had happened, complained that Julian had gone as far as he had, but Julian knew Miles well enough by then to know that he was really very grateful, if also very concerned. It was one thing to consider a man your best friend, spend your free time with him, keep him company while his wife was away. It was another entirely to volunteer to carry his child for five months, Julian’s responsibilities to the station’s population as CMO aside.

They were good people who wanted time with their baby; who wanted to preserve their friendship with him. Julian was also vaguely certain that if he allowed them to, they would have insisted that he sleep in their bedroom, where they could keep an eye on him and act as some kind of protective buffer between the rest of the world and him and the baby. Not just _the_ baby, as he’d thought of it to include himself, _their_ baby; the O’Briens’. Julian had eventually consented to sleeping in their spare bedroom as a compromise to them, and only in part because he wanted to be included. Keiko and Miles saw to that themselves, that he never felt like an outsider, and Julian tried not to feel as if he was taking advantage of their kindness.

Even if Keiko fretted over him and sometimes looked longingly in his direction with lingering guilt about the accident, wondering if she was missing out on some formative bonding experience with her child. Even if, perhaps especially if, Miles harassed Julian in his own infirmary for eating the wrong thing or working longer hours than Miles thought was appropriate. Even if Julian knew better than to think he was getting some kind of supernatural connection with their son when he knew it was nothing more than proximity and blood vessels. _Especially_ if Julian knew his own limits, even with the changes he’d undergone since the accident in the runabout. The O’Briens were grateful and they cared about him and they were only trying to to express that, and it was Julian who looked too far past that for some alternative explanation for their intimate kindness.

“I could go sleep in the other room,” Julian said sleepily, his eyes half-shut and only sinking further closed. “You don’t need to cradle me.”

“Yes, we do,” Keiko whispered close to his ear, her fingertips soft on his scalp as Miles rolled his eyes tremendously and said, “Shut up, Julian.”

Julian knew better than to argue the point with them, and so he relaxed into their careful touch and thought about how long he’d been without a family of his own. How long would he be able to stay like this with them, pretending he had a family: a wife and a husband and a daughter? Sometimes, like just then, it was easy to blur the line between the O’Briens and himself. Julian wondered just how deliberate it was and couldn’t decide whether he was hyper-aware of their implied intimacy or delusional for wanting it from them enough to imagine it. It made him uneasy either way, an imposter intruding on the safe bubble of their family.

Keiko interrupted his thoughts, stirring him from his peaceful reverie when she pressed her nose into his hair and put her arms around his shoulders. Julian cracked his eyes and saw Miles with his eyes on him. He found himself blushing and quickly averted his eyes toward the ceiling.

“Don’t sleep alone tonight,” Keiko suggested just past his ear, and turned her face back into the back of his neck, which flamed with embarrassment.

“Keiko, I should—”

“Julian,” Miles interrupted and leveled the familiar expression of impatience on him, like he was being purposefully obtuse. “Just listen to her.”

Julian looked between the two of them, shifting his weight a little to do so, and then went limp in Keiko’s arms and closed his eyes. They were grateful, more perceptive of his loneliness than anyone else ever could be. In some ways, he owed it to them to accept that with grace. In every other way he owed it to himself.

“Fine,” he sighed wearily, as if they had simply worn down his resistance, though the corners of his mouth were turned upward. “I’ll warn you, though, I snore frightfully.”

“I’ll manage,” Keiko said, and Julian could hear the triumphant grin in her voice; the relieved exhale of accomplishing something she had wanted for far longer than Julian had known. The look Miles exchanged with her over Julian’s shoulder communicated the rest of it, all their plotting and hoping, such that Julian had fallen blindly right into place with their plans without ever knowing.

“You planned this to the moment,” he realized with a groan and turned his face toward the cushions, into Keiko’s arm while Miles laughed.

“I thought you wouldn’t mind,” Miles assured him, a note of warmth in his voice that Julian wouldn’t have dared to focus on even a moment before.

And Julian didn’t mind, not really.


End file.
